Ethnicity/race: Polish 96.7%, German 0.4%, Belorussian 0.1%
Ukrainian 0.1%, other 2.7% (2002)
Religions: Roman Catholic 90% (about 75% practicing),
Eastern Orthodox 1%, Protestant and other (2002)
Literacy rate: 100% (2003 est.)
Economic summary:GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$624.6 billion; per capita $16,200. Real growth rate: 6.5%.
Inflation: 2.1%. Unemployment: 12.8%. Arable
land: 40%. Agriculture: potatoes, fruits, vegetables,
wheat; poultry, eggs, pork, dairy. Labor force: 17.1 million;
agriculture 16.1%, industry 29%, services 54.9% (2007).
Industries: machine building, iron and steel, coal mining,
chemicals, shipbuilding, food processing, glass, beverages, textiles.
Natural resources: coal, sulfur, copper, natural gas, silver,
lead, salt, amber, arable land. Exports: $137.9 billion f.o.b.
(2007 est.): machinery and transport equipment 37.8%, intermediate
manufactured goods 23.7%, miscellaneous manufactured goods 17.1%, food
and live animals 7.6% (2003). Imports: $150.7 billion f.o.b.
(2007 est.): machinery and transport equipment 38%, intermediate
manufactured goods 21%, chemicals 14.8%, minerals, fuels, lubricants,
and related materials 9.1% (2003). Major trading partners:
Germany, Italy, France, UK, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Russia,
China (2004).
Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 11.475 million (2007); mobile
cellular: 36.746 million (2007). Radio broadcast stations: AM
14, FM 777, shortwave 1 (1998). Radios: 20.2 million (1997).
Television broadcast stations: 40 (2006). Televisions:
13.05 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 5.681
million (2007). Internet users: 11 million (2006).
Transportation: Railways: total: 23,072 km
(2006). Highways: total: 423,997 km; paved: 295,356 km
(including 484 km of expressways); unpaved: 128,641 km (2004).
Waterways: 3,997 km navigable rivers and canals (2006).
Ports and harbors: Gdansk, Gdynia, Gliwice, Kolobrzeg,
Szczecin, Swinoujscie, Ustka, Warsaw, Wroclaw. Airports: 123
(2007).
International disputes: small
boundary changes made with Slovakia in 2003.
Poland, a country the size of New Mexico, is in north-central Europe.
Most of the country is a plain with no natural boundaries except the
Carpathian Mountains in the south and the Oder and Neisse rivers in the
west. Other major rivers, which are important to commerce, are the
Vistula, Warta, and Bug.
Government
Democratic republic.
History
Great (north) Poland was founded in 966 by Mieszko I, who belonged to
the Piast dynasty. The tribes of southern Poland then formed Little
Poland. In 1047, both Great Poland and Little Poland united under the rule
of Casimir I the Restorer. Poland merged with Lithuania by royal marriage
in 1386. The Polish-Lithuanian state reached the peak of its power between
the 14th and 16th centuries, scoring military successes against the
(Germanic) Knights of the Teutonic Order, the Russians, and the Ottoman
Turks.
Lack of a strong monarchy enabled Russia, Prussia, and Austria to carry
out a first partition of the country in 1772, a second in 1792, and a
third in 1795. For more than a century thereafter, there was no Polish
state, just Austrian, Prussian, and Russian sectors, but the Poles never
ceased their efforts to regain their independence. The Polish people
revolted against foreign dominance throughout the 19th century. Poland was
formally reconstituted in Nov. 1918, with Marshal Josef Pilsudski as chief
of state. In 1919, Ignace Paderewski, the famous pianist and patriot,
became the first prime minister. In 1926, Pilsudski seized complete power
in a coup and ruled dictatorially until his death on May 12, 1935.
Despite a ten-year nonaggression pact signed in 1934, Hitler attacked
Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Soviet troops invaded from the east on Sept. 17,
and on Sept. 28, a German-Soviet agreement divided Poland between the USSR
and Germany. Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz formed a government-in-exile in France,
which moved to London after France's defeat in 1940. All of Poland was
occupied by Germany after the Nazi attack on the USSR in June 1941. Nazi
Germany's occupation policy in Poland was designed to eradicate Polish
culture through mass executions and to exterminate the country's large
Jewish minority.
The Polish government-in-exile was replaced with the
Communist-dominated Polish Committee of National Liberation by the Soviet
Union in 1944. Moving to Lublin after that city's liberation, it
proclaimed itself the Provisional Government of Poland. Some former
members of the Polish government in London joined with the Lublin
government to form the Polish Government of National Unity, which Britain
and the U.S. recognized. On Aug. 2, 1945, in Berlin, President Harry S.
Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Prime Minister Clement Attlee of Britain
established a new de facto western frontier for Poland along the Oder and
Neisse rivers. (The border was finally agreed to by West Germany in a
nonaggression pact signed on Dec. 7, 1970.) On Aug. 16, 1945, the USSR and
Poland signed a treaty delimiting the Soviet-Polish frontier. Under these
agreements, Poland was shifted westward. In the east, it lost 69,860 sq mi
(180,934 sq km); in the west, it gained (subject to final peace-conference
approval) 38,986 sq mi (100,973 sq km).
A new constitution in 1952 made Poland a “people's democracy” of the
Soviet type. In 1955, Poland became a member of the Warsaw Treaty
Organization and its foreign policy identical to that of the USSR. The
government undertook persecution of the Roman Catholic Church as a
remaining source of opposition. Wladyslaw Gomulka was elected leader of
the United Workers (Communist) Party in 1956. He denounced the Stalinist
terror, ousted many Stalinists, and improved relations with the church.
Most collective farms were dissolved, and the press became freer. A strike
that began in shipyards and spread to other industries in Aug. 1980
produced a stunning victory for workers when the economically hard-pressed
government accepted for the first time in a Marxist state the right of
workers to organize in independent unions.
Led by Solidarity, an independent union founded by an electrician, Lech
Walesa, workers launched a drive for liberty and improved conditions. A
national strike for a five-day workweek in Jan. 1981 led to the dismissal
of Prime Minister Pinkowski and the naming of the fourth prime minister in
less than a year, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski. Martial law was declared on
Dec. 13, when Walesa and other Solidarity leaders were arrested, and
Solidarity was outlawed. Martial law formally ended in 1984 but the
government retained emergency powers. Increasing opposition to the
government because of the failing economy led to a new wave of strikes in
1988. Unable to quell the dissent entirely, the government relegalized
Solidarity and allowed it to compete in elections.
Solidarity members won a stunning victory in 1989, taking almost all
the seats in the Senate and all of the 169 seats they were allowed to
contest in the Sejm. This gave them substantial influence in the new
government. Tadeusz Mazowiecki was appointed prime minister. Lech Walesa
won the presidential election of 1990 with 74% of the vote. In 1991, the
first fully free parliamentary election since World War II resulted in
representation for 29 political parties. Efforts to turn Poland into a
market economy, however, led to economic difficulties and widespread
discontent. In the second democratic parliamentary election of Sept. 1993,
voters returned power to ex-Communists and their allies. Solidarity's
popularity and influence continued to wane. In 1995, Aleksander
Kwasniewski, leader of the successor to the Communist Party, the
Democratic Left, won the presidency over Walesa in a landslide.
In 1999, Poland became part of NATO, along with the Czech Republic and
Hungary.
In Sept. 2001 parliamentary elections, former Communists, reconstituted
as the center-left Democratic Left Alliance, won 41% of the vote. The
election seemed to mark the demise of Solidarity, which did not win a
single seat.
Poland was a staunch supporter of the United States and Britain during
the Iraq war and sent 200 troops to Iraq (60 were combat soldiers). In
Sept. 2003, Poland became the leader of a 9,000-strong multinational
stabilizing force in Iraq. It contributed 2,000 of its own soldiers. In
April 2005, Poland announced it would withdraw all troops from Iraq at the
end of the year.
On May 1, 2004, Poland joined the EU. Prime Minister Leszek Miller
resigned on May 2, 2004. His popularity had plummeted to 10% because of
the country's continued economic troubles and a number of corruption
scandals. Former finance minister Marek Belka succeeded him.
In 2005, conservative Lech Kaczynski became the new president,
replacing former Communist Aleksander Kwasniewski, and Kazimierz
Marcinkiewicz was appointed prime minister. In July 2006 the immensely
popular and well-respected prime minister resigned abruptly, a move many
believe was the result of his difficulties in working with President
Kaczynski. The president then appointed his twin brother—Jaroslaw
Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice Party—as prime minister.
Prime Minister Kaczynski formed a fragile majority coalition with two
small parties, the Self-Defence Party and the League of Polish Families.
After months of political turmoil, the coalition fell apart in August
2007, as Kaczynski sacked four ministers from the partner parties. In
September, Kaczynski called for early elections and Parliament voted to
dissolve itself.
